Brian Tyler, composer, Thor: The Dark World

Brian Tyler has composed more than 60 films and was recently nominated for Film Composer Of The Year by the International Film Music Critic’s Association.

He has scored hits such as Fast Five, Now You See Me, The Expendables and Paramount’s upcoming Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

After composing the score to Iron Man 3, he is taking his second voyage in the Marvel Universe with Thor: The Dark World. 

Tell me a little more about your musical background.

There was a piano around. A guitar. I just liked picking things up and figuring them out. I started writing on the piano when I was very young and I kept that going. Before I knew it I was in band and writing songs. I’m still learning. I studied music in college although that wasn’t my major. I was paying my way through by doing session work; playing on a lot of albums. I played in some orchestras and before I knew it I was composing for films and conducting orchestras. Till this day my studio is filled with instruments and I’m constantly trying to learn. It’s a never-ending process really.

How did you become involved with Thor: The Dark World?

It was because of Iron Man 3. Iron Man 3 had finished not too long before that. I talked to Marvel about it. I got a call that they were interested in talking to me about it. So I came down to Marvel and watched a rough cut of the film and I loved it. I’m a fan of Thor in the first place, and of most Marvel comics. I was really excited to do something that had a mythological angle to it that I could really get into the kinds of scoring that I love, which is a combination of science fiction and fantasy. In Thor, the weaponry is a combination of battleaxes and lasers. To me it’s merging the two kinds of films that I love into one. Musically it doesn’t get any better than that, from my perspective.

Did your work on Iron Man 3 have an effect on your approach to Thor: The Dark World, being that they’re from the same Marvel universe?

The fact is that Iron Man 3 was my first superhero movie. For me it was like a dream come true as well. The angle for Iron Man 3 was they wanted a theme to be connected with Iron Man/Tony Stark. The thing that was tricky was that you need to limit yourself in terms of the scope and epic size of a melodic theme: not just the sound but the literal melody. Because with Iron Man, he is Tony Stark - he’s a guy. He wasn’t born with special powers, he didn’t go through radiation and become someone different, he didn’t come from a different planet. There’s none of that. He’s just a really smart guy who built a kick-ass suit. There needed to be a real grounding of him that reflected his humanity.

With Thor, going into it, the really cool thing for me was there was no confusion between Iron Man and Thor; they’re just so different. Thor is the complete antithesis, he’s classic superhero. He’s born mythologically, he’s from a different planet, from Asgard. He’s heir to the throne so he’s got this whole regal quality about him. So there didn’t need to be any shackles put on the music because he’s so larger than life. He’s not even human. So the approach that connected the movies together is that Marvel really wanted themes that you could remember, that would mark the characters of Iron Man and Thor.

What determines your musical choices – plot or character, or both?

It’s both really. In this case the character was driven by the plot. You are talking about someone that has gone through this journey over the course of the three movies he’s appeared in. In the first film he hadn’t earned his title of Thor, Norse God. He was in that transition. In The Avengers he proved himself. By the time this film comes along, he is a fully realised superhero with a legitimate claim to the throne of Asgard. The fact is that all of that is character but also tied into plot. That’s why it’s so different from the original Thor music because neither score fits on their counterparts movie since the character has changed so much. We did a theme for a post-Avengers Thor. Also, it was the location itself. The fact that so much of the movie takes place on Asgard. It has a different look than Earth and a different feel. It’s regal; it didn’t have to be as Earthbound. I just went for it and I could do what it is that I always wanted to do, which was just take off the shackles.

What was your creative process like for scoring this film?

For me it was watching the film and getting a sense of where it was going. It was talking to the director, talking to the people at Marvel and certainly it was something that was done hand-in-hand with the process of the film-makers. The technical side of the process was just sitting down at the piano, like I always do, and just vibing out the themes and that was a process. I really wanted something that could work on many levels. A theme can work as something that can get you pumped up and motivated and give you the power of Thor. But if it was played differently, the exact same melody could be a lament – something that brought the melancholy nature of the story as well.

How closely do you work with the director, actors, or others as you’re going through the score?

You’re constantly in contact with anyone on the film that has anything to do with making it what it is. Certainly, with this movie, I worked closely with the editors and with the Marvel producers who are all great film-making minds on their own. I try to get input when I can to try to get what we’re really going for. On this film it just became a bit of finding the right voice. It was something that we knew would last as part of Thor’s legacy and that these themes would carry on.